If anybody here is buying online from a store that is not on the list, let me know. (With a short description of what makes it special.)
I got inspired to build this when I saw how much of an outry the closing of Book Depository caused. Although I have not yet completely understood what made Book Depository special. Was it only the free international shipping? Or was there more to it?
I have bought from Foyles, Waterstones and Blackwells - all in the UK. What makes them special, well they are not Amazon. And Foyles used to be amazing, I haven't been for many years but it used to be the largest bookshop in the world in shelf length.
Foyles has been owned by Waterstones since 2018 but still keeps its separate branding. Not that you shouldn’t shop there but it’s technically the same thing.
World of Books is a second-hand book retailer with free shipping in the UK. They don't have every possible book in stock, but you can usually find what you need there.
Interesting. I am looking around their page, but can't find a description on how it works. They say nothing about a CD or something, so it seems you can listen to the audiobooks on their site? How do the local bookstores come into play then?
> I have not yet completely understood what made Book Depository special. Was it only the free international shipping? Or was there more to it?
My understanding is that their business model was to offer a really wide selection of titles, instead of the "top 10" type offering Amazon is mostly about. I think that's a significant part of it.
I apologize if it came across as I made the claim that they really do; I was making an attempt at summarizing my understanding of how the business model for bookdepository might carry some value adding proposition to customers that extended beyond "just" free international shipping. That understanding comes entirely from this quote from a Guardian article about Book Depository's demise:
> The Gloucester-based bookseller was founded in 2004 by Stuart Felton and Andrew Crawford, a former Amazon employee, with the mantra of “selling ‘less of more’ rather than ‘more of less’”. It aimed to sell 6m titles covering a wide variety of genres and topics, as opposed to focusing solely on bestsellers. [0]
Seeing as Book Depository later became a subsidiary of Amazon, it's fair to question whether that model held true. I don't have enough insight into Amazon's catalogue to say either way. Also, I can't remember to which degree Amazon relied on "other sellers" back in 2004 or if that came later ("other sellers" being a way to offer a wider selection than what one carries oneself in retail).
To answer your question for an example of a title Amazon doesn't have; I recently found myself recently looking for "Hur svårt kan det va'" by Eva Bodfäldt, which may admittedly be a contrived example, although Amazon does carry another title in Swedish by the same author [1] (though used and from a third party). As it happens, Book Depository has the title... alas, it's not available for delivery anymore.
Wordery and BooksPlease are the only global free delivery I know of.
awesomebooks is free delivery for UK, but their international delivery is reasonable at £2.99 (+ £1.00 to £4.00 additional items: https://www.awesomebooks.com/help/shipping)
I've been using biblio.com for the last year or so. I don't really know how it works, but lots and lots of independent bookstores sell books through it.
I have no idea, the whole thing's pretty opaque. You'd think they'd all want to be on all the 'aggregator' sites.
Sometimes I've been able to get a better deal going directly to the site of the bookseller. Biblio will have a lower price but higher shipping than on the seller's site. Not always though
https://www.gnod.com/search/books
Adding Bookshop.org now.
If anybody here is buying online from a store that is not on the list, let me know. (With a short description of what makes it special.)
I got inspired to build this when I saw how much of an outry the closing of Book Depository caused. Although I have not yet completely understood what made Book Depository special. Was it only the free international shipping? Or was there more to it?